Comprehending the Afghan Quagmire

by Rina Amiri
November 1, 2001
Reprinted from the Sojourner

“Has Afghanistan always been this way?”

“Is the violence in your country due to the feudal, tribalistic culture?”

“Are violence and war in the Afghan genes?”

“Why should we go clean up the Afghan mess? Why are we contributing food and aid to our enemies—the people who harbor terrorists in Afghanistan?”

Many questions and comments have been directed at me these last weeks by those who have struggled to grasp the situation in Afghanistan today—the decades of war, the radicalism, and the tragic situation of the people. I have taken on the role of responding and trying to put a human face on the conflict. Time is the only factor that distinguishes me from the Afghans you see on TV, those desperately fleeing Afghanistan with their few belongings and children strapped to a mule, or trudging on foot through the rugged terrain, tugging at the arms of their exhausted and hungry children. More than twenty years ago, I was one of those confused children, clutching the hands of my parents, bewildered by why we were leaving our country so suddenly.

My family was among the first waves of refugees who traversed the well-trodden Khyber Pass in the 1970s after the Afghan King, Zahir Shah, was overthrown by his cousin, Sardar Daoud. Like the refugees of today in Afghanistan and throughout the world, overnight we were branded as the enemy of the state and became countryless and homeless as a result of other people’s wars and other people’s politics.

Prior to the coup d’etat in 1973, Afghanistan was a normal place, with ordinary people living routine lives under modest conditions. In Kabul, women made up 60 percent of the educational force and were employed as professionals; secular law and the Islamic Sharia law co-existed as legal mechanisms to address violations; and Afghanistan had not been involved in a war since fighting against British invaders in the 1880s.
What happened, and how has Afghanistan become a victim of an endless cycle of violence and war? There are a multitude of answers capturing the kaleidoscope of truths about Afghanistan. The common elements in all of these explanations are two factors: foreign intervention and the internal and external struggle to control Afghanistan.

While Afghanistan has consistently been one of the most underdeveloped and poorest nations in the world, it has also been considered geopolitically one of the most strategic countries to control. It is the boundary between land power and sea power, the meeting point between Central Asia, Iran, India, and the Persian Gulf. Controlling Afghanistan is the key to maintaining influence over these trade routes.

Foreign great powers have always been keenly aware of this. In the nineteenth century, Afghanistan’s history was shaped by the British and Russian empires’ struggle for domination in what Kipling coined “The Great Games.” The twentieth century only continued this trend, with the Soviet Union, the United States, and regional neighbors imposing their respective interests on Afghanistan.

Many Afghans would agree that the beginning of the twentieth-century Great Game can be traced back to the overthrow of the Afghan king in 1973. Seeking revenues to modernize Afghanistan, President Daoud turned to the United States and the Soviet Union for financial support. The United States turned Afghanistan down largely because of the U.S. alliance with Pakistan. Pakistan and Afghanistan had always had contentious relations because of a territorial dispute.

NEXT: Aid Equals Intervention